Dear Editor,
The administration’s announcement that the discriminatory prioritization categories throughout the winter months will be used is not only inhumane; it does not follow the law, which created no such prioritization categories and states who is eligible for shelter on a first come, first serve basis. These “priority categories” deprioritize people experiencing homelessness and living with disabilities who are under the age of 50.
In the last eight days, we have seen multiple predictable and preventable deaths. Nearly all that have died from the impacts of living outside in the previous week would be deprioritized under this inhumane policy. It is unacceptable for the administration to continue practices that are causing loss of life in numbers more significant than any natural disaster in Vermont. This is a man-made disaster.
It is time for Vermont to have a reckoning. We need to decide if we are committed to protecting the most vulnerable. Our state has to own these deaths, and we need to learn from them.
To re-instate the prioritization policy is to make a decision that the lives of people under 50 and living with disabilities are expendable. Our most vulnerable Vermonters with complex needs under the age of 50 will be left outside at times during the winter. It will also require people living with disabilities to jump extremely high hurdles to access shelter. To put this in context, if someone is under the age of 50, living with a disability, for example, in a wheelchair, on oxygen, with a significant medical condition or complex mental health challenge, like schizophrenia, and is not pregnant or fleeing domestic violence, they will not be able to access shelter using the regular process.
In addition to the growing death toll in Vermont as a result of this recent mass un-sheltering, End Homelessness Vermont (EHVT) received several calls from clients who were living outside and had been hospitalized for or were showing signs of hypothermia. We have several clients who are struggling to breathe and at least one who has suffered a violent sexual assault. Of these calls, only two were people over the age of 50, but each lives with a disability.
After a mass un-sheltering of over 1,000 Vermonters this fall due to the administration’s insistence that Vermont could not afford to keep our most vulnerable safe, the governor then stood up two family shelters with a price tag of no less than $3.2 million. To shelter these same 17 families for the same time frame in a General Assistance hotel would cost $217,600. Meaning that this administration is paying $2.75 million more than is necessary to shelter 17 families while simultaneously saying that they do not prioritize Vermonters under 50 in wheelchairs, with health conditions, on oxygen, and with other significant and complex needs.
In the last two weeks, EHVT has had a client who, due to the impacts of living outside on oxygen and with diabetes, ended up with a blood infection that has now spread throughout his entire body. This is, unfortunately, not the first situation like this that our organization has seen. Putting people with complex needs and disabilities in a “nonpriority” category is not only inhumane but extremely dangerous.
Winter Weather General Assistance Hotel Housing, available to all eligible households, has been the only reprieve any organization could offer its clients since September. The administration has announced that these eligible households will not have the same access they should receive access under the law. This is changing eligibility categories. People living with disabilities under the age of 50 will not be afforded the safety and security that the law allows.
We are also concerned that the administration is creating a capacity issue by preventing the use of available hotel rooms. Some rooms are taken offline for nonhealth-related reasons. While our fellow Vermonters are dying in significant numbers, our state should be using every available tool in its toolbox.
End Homelessness Vermont is calling on the administration to take discriminatory prioritization categories off the table immediately and provide equal access to emergency shelters for all eligible Vermonters as intended in the law.
Our clients and others living with disabilities have a significant need for shelter, as do all Vermonters. Leaving any person eligible under the law to suffer extreme consequences, due to the administration blocking shelter, access is unacceptable. Protecting the most vulnerable does not include leaving people with disabilities or any Vermonter experiencing homelessness outside to fend for themselves. These are genuinely our most vulnerable Vermonters.
The death toll in Vermont is rising as a result of the most recent failed policy. The administration must take seriously the well-being of our most vulnerable Vermonters. We can not understand how the governor can justify implementing a procedure that will increase the death toll of people under 30 experiencing homelessness.
End Homelessness Vermont
